Samsung has begun rolling out an update to the Galaxy Gear that will bring over Tizen, the company's in-house OS, to the smartwatch. The update carries software version 2.2.0, and while the entire OS will be replaced, most users won't notice any visual differences. However, quite a few improvements and new features are to be had - improved performance and battery life, features such as an standalone music player (you can store music on the watch itself), customizable shortcuts for tap input, voice commands in the camera, among others.

I'm still waiting on the Tizen phones Samsung has been promising for years. Even though it's essentially 'TouchWiz OS' (in other words, cringe-worthy), it's still an alternative operating system I would love to play with.

Many Android phones and most Android tablets cannot be upgraded without hacking. This involves unlocking the ROM, backing up data and installing an unsupported custom ROM. This risks bricking and data loss and voids the warranty.

Tizen devices must be upgradeable via OTA or PC based software officially supported by the vendor.

You're not reading what I'm typing. Nothing needs to be unlocked to update an Android device, the only limiting factor (which makes things difficult for e.g. CM) is that the updates are required to be signed with the same key as the Android build was signed with.

I fail to see anything in the linked document that says that this is different on Tizen, or at least _forbidden_ on Tizen.

Since the signature check is a _security_ measure, not just for fun, I fail to see the difference still.